


counterfeit smiles

by coalitiongirl_ficlets (coalitiongirl)



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: 3b, F/F, Swan-Mills Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-07
Updated: 2015-04-07
Packaged: 2018-03-21 16:00:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3698336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coalitiongirl/pseuds/coalitiongirl_ficlets
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“It’s okay, you know,” Henry says, and she blinks at him and wonders if she should follow Regina to the back to see if she’s all right.  </p><p>“Huh?”</p><p>He sucks the ice cream off his spoon. “If she’s why the Walsh thing didn’t work out.”</p><p>[post-Witch Hunt, the Swan Mills family is a family regardless]</p>
            </blockquote>





	counterfeit smiles

**Author's Note:**

  * For [swatkat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/swatkat/gifts).



Henry thinks they’re dating, and she doesn’t find that out until they’re all sitting awkwardly at Granny’s with ice cream and Regina excuses herself for a moment. “It’s okay, you know,” Henry says, and she blinks at him and wonders if she should follow Regina to the back to see if she’s all right.  

“Huh?”

He sucks the ice cream off his spoon. “If she’s why the Walsh thing didn’t work out.”

She squints at him until she realizes what he’s saying, and then she barks out a sharp laugh. “You think…Regina and me…oh  _god_  no. No no no. We’re just friends. And that’s on a good day. And she’d probably yell at me for calling us even that.” She shakes her head. “No. No we’re not. Not even a little. Nope.”

He rolls his eyes at her in that practiced Mills way. He’s been…muted, really, since Regina had given them new memories. Still the same Henry, but without the ceaseless drive that had consumed him in the past, without the same energy and bullheadedness that he’d gotten from a decade with Regina. And then he’ll look at her in some way or say something and she’ll suddenly remember that it’s all a lie and she’s the one reaping the benefits, and something inside of her will ache with the memory of Regina’s wet eyes promising her a happy ending of her own. “Uh huh. You both keep staring at me like it’s the most important thing in the world that I like her. Your  _friend_.”

 

He says the last word with extra skepticism and another eyeroll and she rolls her eyes right back at him and has to ask, “Do you? Like her, I mean. Not that we’re dating!” she says hastily and her cheeks are flushing for absolutely ridiculous reasons. “She’s just…important.”  _To you_ , she doesn’t say, but she’s thinking about how easy it’s been to spend time with Regina when they’re not at each other’s throats and a tentative hand on her back and the still-present fire that flashes across Regina’s face whenever Emma leaves herself open to it and she thinks Regina might be a tiny bit important to her these days, too.

 

Henry snickers but his eyes are thoughtful. “Yeah, I guess I do. She comes on a little strong, but she’s pretty cool. She just seems so…”

 

“So?” Emma prompts. Regina is on her way back from the back of Granny’s, her eyes glittering with emotion as she returns to Henry, and when she meets Emma’s gaze, Emma’s heart does a ridiculous jumpy thing that has  _nothing_  to do with Henry’s assumptions about their relationship.

 

“Sad,” Henry says finally, and he looks a little lost, like there’s something more to his answer that he can’t quite figure out.

 

* * *

Regina invites them for dinner the next night and Mom’s usually one to play it cool with her dates but she doesn’t even hesitate before she accepts the invitation for them both. Henry’s okay with it. If this is Mom’s rebound, she could do a lot worse than Regina, who contemplates both of them like they’re her final anchors in a storm. It’s a little overwhelming sometimes, and Henry’s simultaneously uncomfortable and more at home at the dinner table than he’s been since they came to Storybrooke because Regina is sitting opposite him and he doesn’t know what to say even though he knows that he wants to say  _something_ , connect in some indefinable way to this woman.

 

He focuses on his lasagna- it’s better than Mom’s, but he doesn’t say so until Mom points it out and Regina smirks a little and Mom gives her a secretive grin- and Mom announces, “I’m gonna go look at your video game collection,” because apparently the mayor of Storybrooke has a video game collection and Mom doesn’t bat an eyelash about it.

 

Regina sighs a little and looks after Mom with that tiny smile that’s so  _obvious_  and if they’re not really dating yet, they probably will be soon. Regina’s emotions are all written across her face all the time, even when they don’t make sense to Henry, and it’s kind of nice to have that in this weird little town where everyone seems to be lying all the time.

 

Then she’s looking back at Henry with the same face but different- more melancholy, with the same longing, and she says, “I know you like to read.” Mom’s telling everyone, apparently, maybe because he’s been glued to electronics since they’ve gotten here. “I thought you might want something-“ She pauses, standing and glancing toward the sitting room. “-Different.”

 

The walls in the room are bare of photos but Henry can see the discoloration on the walls where there must have been some frames hanging until recently. “What happened to the pictures?” he asks, then regrets it when Regina exhales loudly and stares blankly at the empty spaces.

 

“I lost someone recently,” she says carefully. “Last year. I haven’t wanted to see reminders of him displayed on my walls lately.”

 

It’s an explanation of everything and nothing more than the darkness in her eyes. “I’m sorry.” He squirms, suddenly uncomfortable.

 

“My son,” she says abruptly. “He was your age.”

 

Oh.  _Oh._  Henry flushes again, and when she looks away first, he regards her silently, traces the longing in her eyes and frowns at his own inexplicable jealousy at it. The way she watches him isn’t about him, it’s about her son, and he doesn’t know why the idea that he isn’t the one who matters to her leaves him suddenly hollow.

 

She’s smiling at him and it’s  _fake_ , a counterfeit smile, a lie as clear as the ones that Mary Margaret and Belle from the library and even the waitress at Granny’s keep telling him. He smiles back, a falseness in response to her own, and then she softens and maybe it isn’t that fake after all. “Let me find those books for you.”

 

One is a brand new anthology of stories from Oz, the other is an old, worn book of fairytales missing the last few pages. The name written inside the front cover is neatly blocked out with ink and he doesn’t have the nerve to ask what it had said.

 

Instead he listens to his mother banging around in the next room and thinks about how Regina looks at her and he smiles for real and says, “Be patient with her, okay? You guys would be worth it.” He scampers off to the entertainment center with his new books and leaves Regina behind, startled.

 

* * *

It’s Emma’s idea that they meet down at the docks that weekend, and Regina doesn’t have the heart to say no when Henry’s so excited about it. She avoids the cannery and tries not to think about running to the Jolly Roger, weakened from a day of torture and disabling the trigger and unable to focus on anything but  _HenryHenryHenry, alone and afraid, soyoungsofragile her little Henry_ –

 

He’s here now. She’s a stranger to him and she thinks he’s probably only agreeing to these outings out of politeness, but he’s here now, and he’s alive, and he has friends and he’s happy.  _She’d_  made him happy, and sometimes her heart wells up with equal parts despair and joy at that knowledge as she cries herself to sleep in his old room.

 

Henry sits down first, his old book of fairytales tucked under his arm, and Regina doesn’t move until Emma takes a seat at the other end of the bench and looks pointedly at the spot between her and their son. And then Henry’s opening his book and this is the kind of family outing she’d once dared to imagine in Neverland, just Henry and the two people who love him most in the world.

 

One of whom he doesn’t know.

 

She looks away from him and comes face-to-face with Emma, who’s smiling at her so encouragingly that warmth spreads through her at once. A smile tugs at her lips and she’s so lost, so alone, but when Emma Swan looks at her she wonders if it might not be forever.

 

“You’re both so gross,” Henry says and she jerks around to face him. He’s watching them, making a face but grinning good-naturedly, and Regina remembers the theory that Emma had laughed off when she’d told Regina about it after they’d gone for ice cream together.

 

By now, Regina knows better than to ever dismiss one of Henry’s theories completely.

 

She lets Emma curl a hand around her wrist and refuses to identify the emotions that wash over her with the contact, and says nothing when Emma retorts playfully, “Let it go, kid.”

 

Henry shrugs and returns to his book, shifting to sit a little closer to Regina, and she forgets that this isn’t her little boy and automatically curls an arm around his shoulders in response. She stiffens, reality returning like a dash of cold water, and she’s about to carefully withdraw her arm when Henry leans back into it and returns to his book, offering her a shy grin as he turns the page.

 

She stares out into the water with Emma’s hand on hers and Henry’s head against her arm and for the first time since Pan’s curse, dares to feel something that’s almost a little bit like hope.


End file.
